Boost in annual DepEd funding sought

Metro Manila, Philippines - Increasing the annual allocation for the Department of Education (DepEd) can help address the country’s functional illiteracy problem, a lawmaker said Saturday, May 3.

This comes after a periodic study conducted by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) found that 18.9 million Filipino high school students are considered “functional illiterate.” This means they can read, write, and compute but could not comprehend what they had read.

According to Cagayan de Oro City 2nd District Rep. Rufus Rodriguez, DepEd needs additional funds for its personnel, infrastructure, and equipment requirements which are essential for the sector.

“There is a need for more classrooms, more teacher positions, additional training for teachers, more books, more school equipment, and provision of more computers and tablets to public elementary learners and high school students,” he said.

“This means that we have to increase the budget of the DepEd every year, instead of reducing it,” Rodriguez added.

The solon called out the Congress’ decision to slash the department’s computerization fund this year by ₱10 billion.

Rodriguez also urged President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to augment the fund from government savings and appropriations in the national budget that he is authorized to realign.

He further said there should be a parallel effort in the private sector to tackle the problem.

The PSA study which was tackled in a Senate hearing on Wednesday, April 30, also found that another 5.86 million Filipino highschool graduates are “basic illiterate,” or unable to read, write, and compute.

In the hearing, PSA said only 79 percent of senior high school graduates in 2024 were functionally literate.